Dead Cross - Dead Cross

Dave Lombardo has always seemed a good deal more ambitious than the rest of his former Slayer compatriots (challenging himself with some jazzier styles of playing in his off-time from Kerry and co.), from whom he is separated yet again. But considering how boring Repentless was, I’m glad he didn’t have to sit on the throne and waste his unappreciated talent for it. In the meantime, his collaboration with Mike Patton has yielded a far-from-ground-breaking, but efficient hardcore thrashfest that far exceeds his former band’s last record in terms of diversity and solid song-writing. The style is a familiar one for Dave and Mike, but they do more than just drive the car on cruise-control here. Dave, particularly plays a bit more restrained throughout the album, but it helps provide more power in the moments he turns up the intensity, and his feet are as fast as ever when he needs them to be. I’m not too much of a fan of Mike’s more low-key vocals when he’s sort of taking a vocal break, as his voice isn’t exactly angelic (like most hardcore vocalists), but when he pours a lot of energy into his performance it fits the instrumentals like a glove. His low-register singing on “Bela Lugosi’s Dead” is an exception however, and the slower brooding tempo of the song is a nice change of pace on the album. I’m not sure how a longer album would have played out for this new group, and perhaps the 27 minutes it spans are such because the music present within is that in which the young chemistry of the band is at its optimum (i.e. maybe they tried other songs and they didn’t gel as a band so much outside what made it on the record). But what’s here is solidly written, powerfully performed, and relatively attention-grabbing crossover thrash.